Politics
Do you find questions of power, conflict, rights, law, or justice interesting? Do you like examining and debating issues like welfare, war and peace, affirmative action, campaign finance reform, foreign relations, human rights, the environment, or nationalism? Do you want to learn how other countries struggle to face political challenges in ways that often differ dramatically from the United States? Politics may be right for you!
The Loras College Politics program provides a wide variety of courses aimed at providing students with a rich experience and an exposure to all elements and aspects of politics and political science. While Loras boasts small class sizes, it does not translate into limited class offerings and the faculty is highly accomplished.
The location of Loras in Iowa, the home of the first national presidential caucus, contributes to what is perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the politics program. An area for particularly active and competitive state and congressional races, Dubuque itself offers Politics majors unparalleled access to political campaigns and candidates. Large numbers of majors work, often times through academic internships, in political campaigns, at both the state and federal level, or in local government lobbying efforts and organizations. In addition to the myriad professional experiences available locally, Loras is affiliated with the Washington Center, 
and regularly sends students to study and intern in Washington. This experience is invaluable and creates a program that combines a theoretically rigorous curriculum rooted in the liberal arts with professional experience.
- You will learn how to look at problems in different ways, how to untangle cause and effect relationships, and how to develop creative solutions.
- You will learn about the underlying dynamics of human conflict and cooperation.
- You will learn how to gauge the influence of current events in the local, national, and global arenas.
- You will learn how to effectively communicate with others in both written and oral forms, a critically important ability in today's information-based society.
In addition to helping you build the general skills necessary in today's job market, a politics major is an excellent preparation for a full range of specific careers. These include careers in areas such as:
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Among the ranks of Politics graduates, Loras boasts members of Congress, state representatives and senators, federal and state judges, city planners and managers, and professionals in various other fields. A significant number of graduates also attend law school and other graduate programs.
In today's highly fluid, increasingly complex, and rapidly changing economy, students need to acquire the kinds of skills that will help them successfully adapt. Employers are not looking for graduates who are specially trained to do one specific job, but rather graduates with the kinds of analytical and communication skills necessary to do many jobs and to fill new ones as they emerge. Flexibility, adaptation, and the ability to think independently are critical in the modern job market, and politics is an excellent discipline to build just these kinds of skills.
Loras sponsors an on-campus chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor
Society.
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